The main theme of this paper is to study statistical inference concerning empirical Lorenz curves and its generalisations. These curves are useful devices for examining welfare and inequality. Asymptotical sampling properties of the Lorenz curve are discussed. An improvement to a standard...

Empirical equilibrium search models have attracted a growing interest in recent years. Estimation of such models has not been completely successful, however. This has led researchers to develop more sophisticated versions of the models, in an attempt to get a better fit to the data. This study...

This paper analyses the economic determinants of suicide. More specifically, we test the hypothesis that suicide is related to shocks or news concerning income growth. Testing is based on an error correction model of suicide in which the long-run part takes into account various demographic and...

This paper investigates how the segregation of women and men into certain occupations, industries, firms and jobs within the firms is reflected in the gender wage gap in the Finnish manufacturing sector. Using matched employer-employee data we evaluate wage differentials between men and women...

One aim of the Finnish parental leave benefit scheme (maternity-, paternity and parental leave benefits) is to support the participation of both mothers and fathers in caring their child since her/his birth. Most fathers take up paternity leave when the mother is on her leave, but very few...

The fast development in communications and information based industries as well as in other network related industries gives rise to new constellations in competition and innovation. These are strongly dependent on strategic decisions which can be analysed by the concepts of network...

The Finnish agricultural support system underwent fundamental changes when Finland joined the European Union. Prior to the EU membership the support was mainly price support. The CAP as well as the reformed agricultural policy outlined in Agenda 2000, means that the agricultural support paid...

Social capital facilitates cooperation in the society. High level of social capital promotes economic efficiency by lowering transaction costs. Trust towards strangers and low level of corruption are examples of high level of social capital. The concept of social capital is already an old one,...

In this paper we consider the effects of labour taxation on wages, unemployment and efficiency in a job matching framework. We derive labour market equilibrium with taxes in a model of endogenous job creation and job destruction under three alternative hypothesis of wage formation: Nash bargain,...